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Artley Henry |
Drug dealer Frostie’s ‘office’ on streets of Camden Town
Gang boss who sold crack cocaine and heroin at bus stops jailed for nine years
HE never touched the drugs. He never made a sale. But if you bought crack cocaine or heroin in Camden Town last year – or watched indignantly as it was sold to others and openly consumed – the chances are that it had passed through the hands (and mouths) of the gang run by a shadowy figure known as “Frostie”.
As a judge handed out sentences totalling more than 34 years to Frostie – real name Artley Henry – and his seven-strong gang of runners and mules last Thursday, he condemned their “highly organised commercial operation to distribute heroin and crack cocaine in the streets of Camden”.
Until an “extremely skilful and determined investigation” by undercover detectives, Judge Peter Murphy said, Frostie had treated the bus stops and alleyways of Camden Road as his place of work.
“Every day you went to the office as it were, making your way to Camden for the day’s business,” Judge Murphy told Woolwich Crown Court. “This was a very serious commercial retail operation. It is impossible to say how many lives were ruined.”
Until police raided the gang’s “warehouse” in a flat in Waterhead, Regent’s Park, and found £3,000 worth of drugs being prepared for sale, the 24-year-old Jamaican drove every morning from Stockwell to the Maiden Lane estate to peddle class A drugs through his gang of runners and mules.
He boasted to police that he was “untouchable” and masterminded a business that detectives claim was worth £1 million a year.
But Henry, who was jailed for nine years, became the target of Camden CID’s Operation Spoor.
Undercover test purchase officers sought out his runners and were filmed buying crack cocaine and heroin at bus stops and on housing estates around Camden Town.
The jury at the two-month trial watched hours of footage showing the deals in the Ampthill estate, Mornington Crescent, Kentish Town Road, and Prince of Wales Road.
CCTV gathered by Camden Council showed deal after deal in the gang’s favourite patch, the strip of Camden Road between Camden Town Tube station and the bus stops outside Sainsbury’s supermarket.
Although the video clearly showed the guilt of the dealers, pinning the blame on the hands-off Frostie required detectives to analyse thousands of phone calls.
Detective Sergeant Sean Tuckey, who led the operation and was commended by the judge, said after the trial: “This is a major sentence for somebody who is not touching the substances, and the feedback we’ve had from drug-users and businesses is that it had a major impact at the time in Camden Town. Clearly, no single operation is going to entirely eradicate this problem – we will continue to target those who supply class A drugs.”
Appearing alongside Henry, Wayne Mcleod, 20, from Canada, received 18 months in a young offenders institution, Matthew Nix, 39, from Boswell Street, Bloomsbury, received two and a half years, and Conroy Washington Wilson, 37, who was on the run from prison when he was arrested, received three and a half years.
All four had been found guilty of conspiracy to supply class A drugs at Wood Green Crown Court in March.
Trevor Gentles, Dorothy Pond, Kevin Speid and Peter Harris had earlier pleaded guilty to the same offence.
Harris, who the judge described as having an “appalling record” which included a conviction for manslaughter, received five years and seven months, and Gentles, described as “a senior and trusted lieutenant to Mr Henry”, was handed four years and nine months. |
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